Sixty days have passed since #2017 began. Have you reached any of your short-term goals in that time? Be honest! That's the real start to something new sticking in your life. Honesty. You have to at least be honest with yourself about what changes are needed to improve your life if you are ever going to actually improve it.

Short-term goals help to support the success of long-term goals. It's part of strategic planning. So, rather than just making the proclamation, "I want to lose weight, save money and find a new job in #2017," you build-in checks and balances. That's what a short-term goal does for you. It may not seem crucial to complete a small daily task for say, 30 days, but if 30 days pass and you're no further along, you know exactly why, and can then make the necessary adjustments.

Why adjust anything for non-crucial goals??? Simply put, nothing comes from nothing. If you change nothing, nothing will change. Just because a change is small doesn't mean it has a small impact, too. When you underestimate the power of starting small, instead of losing 60 days of our new year, 365 will pass without any of your goals succeeding. And, you are on this planet in this lifetime to do more than just survive the next 305 days of #2017, #2018, #2019, #2020, and beyond. You're here to make manifest your dreams.

Do you understand me???

Make. Manifest. Your. Dreams.

Success doesn't happen over night. It's incremental. Small successes each day add up to big success over time. Weight loss is a great example. You can take magic pills. You can get cool sculpting or liposuction. But, none of that will really help you if you also do not maintain a series of small daily changes, like what you put in your mouth and increasing body movement. Those small changes have to be mindfully maintained each and every day. Small changes are the equivalent of short-term goals. You will lose weight in 30 days if you meet your short-term goals every 24 hours.

So, what are the obstacles blocking you from reaching your short-term goals? Because, whatever those obstacles are, you must remove them in order to be successful overall. Whether it's starting a business, writing a book, finding a new job, losing weight, saving money, or, finding love, you MUST make realistic short-term goals you meet each day in order to see long-term success.

Society is full of haters willing to provide each of us with a lifetime of resistance, a lifetime of obstacles. Why help those miserable sods achieve THEIR goals??? You could take the same energy you put into beating yourself up and invest it in YOUR success. It's actually easier to be successful than it is to be a failure. You may feel like it's the opposite, but when you do, it's because you're just used to failing; it helps you to gain continued acceptance within your social circles, circles that prefer you to be meek, weak and vulnerable...or, those same people would have worked to raise you up, not keep you down.

Even if we understand that we self-sabotage, we may not understand why we hurt ourselves in the first place. The answer always goes back to childhood. This isn't about blaming parents, bad uncles, nasty neighbors, or anyone else. It's about recognizing that, whoever made you feel "bad" or "dark" or "evil," made you feel that way because someone did the very same thing to them.

Compassion begins with the self. As does real love. You must feel enough love and compassion for yourself in order to be truly successful at meeting any life-goals that move you forward instead of back. Even then, the neural pathways in your brain etched there by decades of self-sabotage will still exist. You can't beat them. You can only build in coping strategies to circumvent them. Coping strategies like short-term and long-term planning.

#LifeHacks are popular in #Millennial culture. But, there are no short cuts in life. Anyone who says different is a liar. You always have to put in the work. That takes time. Effort. Energy. And, perhaps most importantly, courage.

In order to make the next 60 days of #2017 better than the last 60 days, you will stop making excuses. You will stop justifying your lack of momentum on victimization. And, you will start making and maintaining small daily changes that support your long-term goals.

Hey, being victimized is no fun. It's real. And, it really hurts. Hard to keep coming back after repeated social sabotage. However, only you can pull yourself up from that pest-infested swamp. The people that have hurt you??? They do not want to see you succeed. And, those people are likely your own friends and family members. No, I'm not kidding.

See, whatever that secret childhood shame is--the one that has kept you stuck in a cycle of self-sabotage--it has kept you connected to folks who are toxic. You don't choose your family, but you do choose your friends. You do choose who you attach your life to through love relationships. It's extremely likely that if you can relate to what I'm saying, you have essentially surrounded yourself with enemies. People who will continue to hold you down and back, in the event you ever muster up enough courage to finally make a change. Self-sabotage is no joke. It runs deep. But, even if you've lost a few battles, you can still win the war.

Maybe it's something as small as flossing every day. But do commit to making those small daily changes. After 30 days of success, make another. And, another. Eventually, you will beat back all the negatives. Stick with the small changes and one year from today, you will be infinitely closer to success, if not completely successful.

I believe in you. When you need help, strength or courage, just take a deep breath. Think of me. And, my light will be with you. You can feel it, can't you??? Just by reading this essay, a little of my light was already imparted to you.

Together, we will find success. Happiness. Fulfillment. Joy. And, best of all, bliss....

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About the Author

Rebecca Housel, Ph.D., known as "The Pop Culture Professor" (TM), is an international best-selling author and editor in nine languages and 100 countries. Rebecca, listed in the Directory of American Poets & Writers for her work in nonfiction, was nominated by Prevention magazine essayist and best-selling author of The ImmortalLife of HenriettaLacks, Rebecca Skloot, to the National Association of Science Writers for her work on cancer. Rebecca has published with best-selling author of The Accidental Buddhist, Dinty Moore's literary nonfiction journal, Brevity, and with commercial publications like Redbook magazine and online journals like In Media Res. Her recent interviews appear in publications such as the LA Times, Esquire, USA TODAY, The Huffington Post, Inside HigherEd, Woman's World magazine, and Marie Claire as well as on FOX news, and NBC. Former President of the New York College English Association, Housel was a professor in both Atlanta and New York, teaching popular culture, film, creative writing, literature, and medical humanities. Dr. Housel currently works on the Editorial Advisory Boards for the Journal of PopularCulture and the Journal ofAmerican Culture; she has also worked as a reviewer for Syracuse University Press and Thomson Wadsworth. A writer of all genres, Housel has written and published both fiction and nonfiction in over ten books and 398 articles, essays, book chapters, book reviews, and encyclopedia entries.